Ecosse

Top 10 Scottish castle stays. Blair Castle, Perthshire (woodland lodges) Blair Castle in bucolic Perthshire, the seat of the Dukes of Atholl since medieval times, wouldn’t look out of place in a Disney film.

This white-turreted confection owes its good looks to a spot of Victorian remodelling.
Top 10 budget restaurants, pubs and cafes in Edinburgh. Thomson's Bar A premises to warm the heart of any pub purist, Thomson's has no music, several real ales and serves, at lunchtime only, a tight, affordable menu of three pies, a daily hot dish and a few panini.

I had assumed that the website's advice to get there dead on midday, to be certain of getting a pie and a seat, was hype. But, no. I arrive at 12.20pm and the place is already packed with office workers tucking into enormous steak pies with lush, well-worked mash and serviceable mushy peas (£5). Perching my plate on a ledge, I tuck in with gusto, the only caveat being that the bottoms of these entirely puff pastry pies can get a shade gloopy under the weight of all that steak and gravy. Pie lovers who can't stretch to a fiver could try Piemaker (38 South Bridge, 0131 558 1728, thepiemaker.co.uk), a pasty and pie shop which it is almost impossible to talk about without using the phrase a posh Greggs.

Yummytori Los Cardos Tanjore Union of Genius Manna House Bakery & Cafe. 10 Best Outdoor Adventures in Scotland. The foundation of any good trip is getting outside to play.

The rest, even Michelin star meals, is icing on the cake. Scotland is one of the world’s great destinations for adventure. You won’t find the highest mountains or the thinnest air there, but you will find everything else: fishing, cycling, hiking, sea kayaking and more — all of it set against dramatic landscapes populated by friendly people with the legal Right to Roam. During part of our stay we linked up with Wilderness Scotland, an outdoor travel company with proper outdoor chops and good-natured guides. We tapped their expertise for these 10 great adventures in Scotland. Hiking the Storr This iconic summit on the Isle of Skye on the Trotternish ridge makes for an inspiring hike through one of Scotland’s most memorable landscapes. Hiking the Speyside Way This hiking route starts at the east coast in Elgin where the mighty River Spey meets the sea.
Inver, Strathlachlan, Argyll and Bute, Scotland – restaurant review.

The drive to this unusual restaurant, open only a few weeks, is enough to make this Scottish exile weep into her hip flask.

The sweeping handsomeness of the crags, furred with pines; the road that winds around glittering pewter loch after loch. Dorothy, we’re not in Hyndland any more.
The Ultimate Scotland Travel Guide. Preface Embarking On A Scottish Adventure he Freedom to Roam, unburdened of fences and posted signs, angry landowners and angrier guard dogs, is a shared dream among adventurers.

Scotland codified it in 2003. The Land Reform Act puts it pretty plainly: every person has the statutory right “to be… on land” — that is, all of it in the nation — and has “the right to cross” that land. Within guidelines for respectful use, recreational or educational, that means any Joe Scot can bring a backpack, a tent, and a friend and saunter cross-country, going where they please among the nation’s 30,000 square miles — many of them unpopulated, all of them free of any major predators besides the biting midges that emerge during the summer months.

This sounded romanticized. What we found was one of the most beautiful, alluring places on earth. And now we turn over our travel notes to you. 72 Hours In Glasgow Postcard: Full Scottish Breakfast Landing in Glasgow 10:45am: Chris Wright, Assistant Editor. Dining at The Three Chimneys. We’d wanted to get out on bikes, but the weather was just relentless: day seven now in Scotland of gusting wind, rain and the occasional spray of hail.

Now we were on the Isle of Skye, getting hit by western island’s wettest month plus a bit of Hurricane Gonzalo’s wrath. Still, the will to bike beat out the will to stay comfortable, so we packed the rentals in the back of the truck and set out for a good spot to spin to between our house in Breakish and our afternoon destination in Colbost, about 50 miles away and as far northwest as you can get on Skye, or in Scotland for that matter. After a few hours we rolled in to small parking lot alongside a bay, soaked to the bone and very cold. Our colleague Chris met us with the car and we pulled down the street into an empty gravel lot to strip naked and put on dry clothes. I forgot shoes, so I put on boots a few sizes too big; Sung forgot pants, so he was going to be very cold for the rest of the day.